OUR OLD OLDS

The first family car I can remember was a green Oldsmobile, my guess a 1951 model, that we took all the way to Aberdeen, Washington when I was three years old. My father's older half-brother lived there, and Mama Bore says she found out when we arrived that my father had failed to tell him we were coming. Just a minor omission. She says every time she's seen the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, the unannounced arrival of Cousin Eddie and his crew at the Grisswald home reminds her of our own family escapade of the summer of 1952. Surprise!!!

Although I have no memory of the trip, I do remember later rides in the car. In the days before belted car seats for kids, I had my own special roosting spot. It was a bicycle basket with a padded seat hinged on top, which served two purposes. I could see out the windows when I sat on it, and Beans and Big Sis could stash their comic books in the basket part. This was a homemade number--not one of the fine "extras" that Oldsmobile offered.

I can also recall sitting in the Olds with Beans and Sis when Mom would take us downtown at night. While she was in a store, we kids would play Boogeyman. The basic idea was that every car that drove by had a boogeyman inside, and we'd have to duck down so he couldn't see us. Kids had to be creative with their game playing back in those days.

We went through a few more cars when I was a kid: two Pontiac station wagons, a purplish-brown gawd-awful something with winged back fenders that we called "The Batmobile," and a few VW Beetles. Beans once tried to teach me how to drive one of the VW's, an event that ended six blocks from our house with him laughing at my hopeless attempts at shifting the gears. I blew up into tears and cuss words. Not a pretty sight. I shall continue my driving adventures tomorrow.